Hence it is necessary to judge of such matters according to higher principles than the common laws, according to which _synesis_ judges: and corresponding to such higher principles it is necessary to have a higher virtue of judgment, which is called _gnome, _ and which denotes a certain discrimination in judgment.

Secondly indirectly, through the good disposition of the appetitive power, the result being that one judges well of the objects of appetite: and thus a good judgment of virtue results from the habits of moral virtue; but this judgment is about the ends, whereas _synesis_ is rather about the means.

Related Words

Wordmap

Word visualization

Comments

It is odd that all the usage examples at this entry are from works of medieval moral theology (all but one from the "Summa"), where synesis denotes something different from its rhetorical meaning, which is the only meaning defined. No explanation of Aquinas' use of the term is given.